


Once Upon a Time for Carmelita

by AmmyMcKay



Series: Awestruck Tales [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean's Phone, Episode: s09e08 Rock and a Hard Place, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Permanent Injury, Salt And Burn, Unrequited Love, becoming a hunter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:55:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7840258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmmyMcKay/pseuds/AmmyMcKay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Dean & Sam save her from the goddess Vesta, Suzy has trouble moving on. So, she becomes a hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time for Carmelita

Suzy didn't go to Good Faith anymore. She couldn't. Honor remained in the church, but A.P.U. had broken up when Suzy stopped going. It was hard to continue an abstinence group when the counselor stopped heading it. And when everyone knew she had had sex with Dean. She couldn't really preach abstinence, then.

Neil and Barb were in strict denial over what happened. Weeks had passed. And it was hard. She was moving out of her apartment. She couldn't stay in Hartford any longer. How could everyone else just continue living? What was wrong with her that she couldn't?

The Winchester boys had left in a hurry. In the aftermath, she was the one who had to piece together the lies for the group. She remembered that day; it was etched in her mind forever. She remembered Dean's face leaning close to hers for a tender goodbye kiss. Too soft to mean anything more than farewell, but the taste of it lingered for many days despite the fact that she did not kiss back. All she did was accept his lips on her own. 

He frowned, as if he had expected her to press into his mouth and kiss him deeply. But he tenderly touched her face and stroked a calloused finger along her jaw.  _ "Adios." _

Perhaps that was the reason why she couldn't move on.

\---

She was boxing up her things and, when she moved her bed, she found a cellphone tucked between the wall and her headboard. It was, of course, dead by now, but she recognized it as Dean's phone. She smiled. 

It made more sense to her, then. When they had been trapped underground, he couldn't find this phone, but he had a spare one in one of his other pockets. Then, he just assumed the goddess had taken his first phone. But, if Vesta had searched his pockets for that phone, then why hadn't she found the spare? The answer, Suzy found, was simple: It was because Vesta never took it in the first place. 

She found her phone charger and connected it to Dean's phone. Every time she looked at it, it was there, the big proof that what had happened that day really did happen. As soon as it was charged, she turned the phone on and the screen was locked. She sighed.  _ Really? _ She put the phone away.

\---

Suzy called Sheriff Mills. "I can't go back to my old life."

"I know," Jody replied. 

They practiced shooting at the range. Suzy felt power in the pistol. She relished the kickback, the smell of gunpowder, and her aim got truer and truer. She kept wanting to ask about unlocking the phone, but she couldn't. She didn't want to bother anybody. Her first hunt was a salt-and-burn with Jody once her arm healed completely.

"I can't do it like those boys…" Jody said, "Travelling all over God's Green Acre to chase hunts… but if anybody needs anything done in the Sioux Falls area, I do my best. You know, I called them over when the Vesta thing was happening. I know when a hunt is over my head and those Winchesters are the best at what they do."

Suzy pushed the shovel deep into the dirt. She never thought she'd be desecrating graves. Jody kept watch. The glow from their lantern lit up their faces. This was a different world, she told herself. This was Dean's world. And when she dumped herself into it, then he'd eventually find her again. Then she'd give him a real kiss. She smiled.

"You have to hurry, Suzy," Jody said. "You can't have your head in the clouds while you dig up a grave. Focus on the task or the task will kill you."

Suzy wiped her hand across her forehead. She was sweating badly and the sweat ran into her mascara, which burned her eyes. She decided not to wear make-up when she was digging up a body. Now she understood why Jody was so practical. 

After she was about two feet into the hole, Jody tossed her a bottle of water, and they switched. Suzy held onto the sawed-off like a talisman. The glow from the lantern attracted moths from the darkness. The night air was hot and sticky, heavy with the song of summer insects.

Two more feet and Jody handed the shovel to Suzy. Her short hair was covered in dirt as she pulled herself out of the hole.

"So, Dean and Sam do this a lot?" It made sense now how they were so well built.

"Yeah," Jody answered. "They do more, but this is their bread and butter. I worry for those boys. This ain't a good life. A kind life. You'd think being a cop was tough. Nothing prepares you for killing a goddess."

Suzy grunted as she worked through the dirt. She had found a rhythm to her work. "If Vesta was a goddess, does that mean there is no God?"

Jody kept her eyes scanning the area as she answered. "I learned from the boys that there are angels. I think it follows there is God, too. Y'think?"

Suzy frowned as she loaded another shovel-full of dirt and tossed it out of the hole. "I don't know."

"Well, I do know there is a King of Hell," Jody said. "And if there ain't a God when there is the Devil, then what are we here for?"

It gave Suzy something to think about as she continued to dig.

The worst part was opening the coffin. They pushed through the pine box and the stench of death rolled out, causing Suzy to gag. Jody remained stone faced, unaffected. She had seen worse, apparently. Suzy could see it in her eyes. Something horrific had turned Jody to this life. Suzy couldn't pinpoint a reason. The most motivating factor that she could think of was that she wanted to redo that kiss.

Jody leaned over the body, pouring gasoline on it while Suzy dumped a container of salt on the body. Then, the sheriff handed Suzy the match book. She lit it up and tossed it on the decaying flesh that lay in the coffin. And then, that was it. A routine salt-and-burn. Textbook.

When they were done, Jody clapped Suzy on the shoulder. "How was it?"

Suzy smiled.

The next day, her muscles ached so much she could hardly move. But she could do it again. She needed to.

\---

Suzy had taken to packing up her car and heading across the country. She started collecting weapons and false IDs like other hunters. She partnered with them from time to time. She built a reputation for her impeccable research and her sharp memory--especially for rituals and rites--despite being a rookie. If only they knew it was from the time she was a bright-eyed actress who studied her characters and practiced her lines until they were drilled in her head. She worked so hard on that path, dreaming of playing in Indie movies, artsy enough to be prideful of her craft. She had told herself she would never be a sell-out. But instead, she became a porn star. 

Some of the other hunters--men--recognized her.  _ "Carmelita…" _ they called her, but that name had turned into a taunt to her. They always asked her how she came to be a hunter. She would either say nothing or she'd borrow another hunter's story just so they'd leave her alone. So, she's spin some yarn about a man she lost. Or a child she lost. Or a life she lost. Because her own story sounded so petty in comparison:  _ I want to kiss Dean Winchester and do it right this time. _

\---

Suzy had since then fought many terrible things. She had hacked off a vampire's head with a machete. It took a couple of strokes, but she got it done. She shot a werewolf through the heart with a silver bullet. She had successfully exorcised a few demons. More ghosts. Tomorrow, she was going after a Wendigo. When she told any hunter, they would tell her not to go. To let someone with more experience go after it. She scoffed at them. If she put her mind to it, she could do anything. It wasn't long before she found someone who'd take her. 

She packed her things for tomorrow's hunt. Her partner for this hunt was sharpening knives in the motel room, which stank of sex. He was just as ready as she was, he told her. He said he hunted a Wendigo before. That he could kill them in his sleep and with one hand tied behind his back.

He lied.

\---

"Oh god. Oh god. Please. Are you okay? You saved me. You saved me. Oh god. Please…" She could feel his trembling hands touch her neck to find the pulse. It was there. Thready, weak, but it took him so long to find it. "Oh thank god. You're still alive? I'm going to get some help, okay?" The terror in his voice didn't make her feel too good.

_ I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I'm stupid. _ She laid in the cold, damp darkness while she gently sobbed. Blood was pooled around her. She had killed the Wendigo, but not without casualties. Three civilians dead. The hunter that came with her was dead. Only one was saved and he had run off to get help.

She was gravely injured. She couldn't make words. When she turned her head, she could feel the flayed skin flapping loose on her face. The pain was unbearable. Her throat felt raw and she realized she had been screaming the entire time. She was waiting to black out from the pain, but it was like her body was too alert, on fire from the adrenaline.

It seemed like a lifetime before light flooded the area.

"We found her."

"Holy shit. She's still alive?"

"We found the Jane Doe. God, what could have done this? Cougar, you think?"

She was air-lifted to the nearest hospital.

\---

The bones in Suzy's fractured face were mending. She was still healing, still learning to speak and eat. The surgery had left her with some facial paralysis, but she could make do. As long as she could still hunt. Her hands were bandaged up. Nobody visited her except for a few hospital volunteers from the nearby churches. They were too kind.

She had learned her lesson now. If other hunters told her that she couldn't take something alone, they meant it. She remembered when Jody mentioned about calling the Winchesters when she knew a hunt was over her head. Nobody had been trying to belittle her. She learned that hunters, good hunters at least, looked out for each other. She also learned that shouldn't trust a young buck who wanted in her pants. A man like that would say anything.

She left the hospital as soon as she could, learning what she could about the physical therapy and facial exercises she was supposed to do to keep her recovery going and possibly regain better function. 

Her speech was muddied now, words slurring together, but she'll figure out how to get everything to work on her own. She didn't need the hospital. Her injuries made her look like someone else and sound like someone else. She didn't mind. She thought it was better that way. She got back into hunting as soon as she felt ready, starting with a few salt-and-burns that she could handle alone.

\---

Now, at least, the hunters stopped asking her how she got into hunting. They always asked the fresh-faced new hunters and she saw why now that she was on the other side of it.  _ You're young. You barely have a foot in this life. Go back before it destroys you. _

Now, they assumed she was destroyed and broken down like the rest of the hunters. Every hunter had damage. She just wore hers on her face now. 

When she went to hunter bars or met up with another hunter, they would share their stories to try to get her to share hers, though she never shared the truth of how she started. Some of these hunters had stories that she couldn't believe the strength they had to choose to fight every day. But then she understood. They had nothing to lose.

She lost everything. But it was her choice. She was okay with that.

\---

She was hunting with a man named Jesse this time after her injuries had healed completely. He told her that nobody could hunt this thing alone. It was a demon. He'd glance up at her from time to time, when he thought she wasn't looking. She was quiet and kept to herself. Her hair was down most of the time, hiding her face. "I don't want to talk much," she had told him. She spoke slowly, carefully enunciating her words. She never said his name. Too hard to say. She called him  _ J _ instead or avoided saying his name altogether.

"Got it," the other hunter said.

\---

She watched carefully as Jesse painted down a trap for the demon. She gripped her gun in her hand.

"Guns don't do anything," the other hunter told her.

"I know, J," she said, her words slurring slightly. "Not my first demon." The word  _ first  _ gave her issue. Jesse pretended not to notice.

She switched the gun for a knife, anyways.

When they summoned the demon, it was in the body of a beautiful young woman. They threw holy water on her and her eyes went black. The demon ran after them, but comically ran into an invisible barrier. That was when Jesse kicked the corner of the rug up and revealed the devil's trap underneath. Suzy helped him tie the demon, who was powerful, but together, the two hunters managed.

The demon was stronger than they first thought. The wind blew and Jesse lost his grip on the book with the exorcism in it. He reached for it, but then the demon broke through the trap by damaging the house they were staying in. She was quickly upon the male hunter, holding him down, thinking that Suzy was not a threat until she felt a knife dipped in holy water cut through her. Suzy was hard and brave. She finished the exorcism. She knew every word, having memorized this and other rituals and rites. Though the words occasionally slurred together, the demon smoked out of the woman's mouth. They salt-and-burned her body when all was said and done.

\---

After hunts with another hunter, it was too easy to end up in bed together, which was where Jesse and Suzy ended up. Holed up in some cheap motel room, sharing a queen-sized bed. At first it was awkward. She kept trying to look away so he couldn't see her face. She was too quiet and her silence made it hard for him to get into the mood. Lonelier men didn't have that problem. Less considerate men would continue and she would accept it, eventually.

Jesse was different than most. He had worked with her on this case long enough to know to turn the lights off to make her more comfortable. He eased his body in the covers next to her. He knew not to touch her face or move the locks of hair behind her ear. His hands roamed all over her beautiful body. She realized the sex was not going to be just for him. It was going to be for her, too.

Once she was comfortable, he was surprised at her experience, at how she seemed to understand what his body wanted before he even realized. They stripped out of their clothes, carefully undressing the other in a sensitive, sensual dance. 

As the moonlight shone through the cheap blinds and painted them both with stripes in the unlit room, they were wrapped in each other. A warm tangle of arms and legs. Moist in their crotches, playful on the tongues, shivering with delight. " _ You're beautiful,"  _ he kept telling her. And that night was a miracle because she let herself believe him.

\---

Morning came and she was huddled next to him, still asleep. Jesse turned to study her.

He could see the scar along her jaw where the Wendigo had scratched her, but also the asymmetry of her face where the creature had crushed her bones. The sunken left cheek. And when she smiled, only the right side of her mouth moved. Still, her face had been rebuilt well.

When she woke up, he grinned, looking at her right in the eyes. 

"Hey beautiful, wasn't last night incredible?" Jesse asked her.

Suzy thought of her night with Dean, back when she was still beautiful. She shrugged and pulled her clothes on quickly. She wanted to be back on the road again, not spend another minute with a man who just wanted her body and was willing to peddle lies like calling her pretty to get there. She remembered the Wendigo with bitterness. She had given the man her body in order to hunt the creature. And she ended up here.

"Suz?"

"I've had better," she said, sharply. 

"Really?" Jesse said, his pride wounded.

And she wondered when she had become such a bitch.

Still, he gave her his phone number and they parted. Hunt a demon, have sex, goodbye.

She dug through her duffel bag and found the small, cheap phone that had come to symbolize the catalyst for her adventure as a hunter. She contemplated finding a way to unlock it, but she put it away again. She was afraid, for some reason. Afraid that it might break the spell. That she'd go back to being who she was before. She'd rather have this thankless, dead-end life. She'd rather glorify Dean in her memories instead of learn he was like the rest of the hunters here.

\---

She had several more hunts and was quite a prolific hunter. She was easy to work with. Quiet and professional. Like Sam and Dean, she had no places to call home. Her home was the road. Her livelihood was the hunt. She made it work. She wanted to. 

She spent mornings making her body strong and keeping her instincts sharp. She spent evenings studying lore. Every hunt, she'd hold the phone she found back when she still lived in Hartford and contemplated starting the chain of events that would lead to her unlocking it and everything inside of it. She always decided not to. At first, she thought it was because she was afraid. Now, she wasn't sure. Perhaps she had gotten into the habit of just not bothering with it.

\---

The next year, she hunted with a woman named Linda. She was strong. She kept a stern expression on her face. She had a burn on her arm, usually kept hidden under her sleeve. They stayed together for a few hunts. Going the same way, apparently, so they decided to keep hunting together. 

One night, Suzy had noticed, as Linda was changing in the motel room, the tattoo on her. It looked just like Dean's, on her chest, just under her collar bone.

"That tattoo…" Suzy said.

Linda brushed it gently. "Anti-possession symbol. Most people go for a charm instead." She flicked her eyes towards the necklace around Suzy's neck. 

"Do you know the name Winchester?" Suzy asked. Except she couldn't say the last name right anymore. That name was cursing her.  A mix of all the sounds she had trouble saying put into one name.

"Winchester?" Linda asked to confirm.

Suzy nodded.

Linda sighed. "Dean and Sam, yes. But everyone learns of them when you hunt long enough. Be careful mentioning them. They aren't popular with everyone."

"And? What do you think about them?"

"They are probably the best at what they do," she answered simply.

Suzy remembered being locked in that dungeon with Dean when she was imprisoned by Vesta. It still looked like they survived everything like any other hunter did: By the seat of their pants. But after being on her own hunts, she understood what Linda meant. 

"Have you met them?" Linda asked, her dark eyes inquisitive.

"Yup." 

"Me, too," Linda said. "My boy was supposed to have a future, but the Winchesters happened. His future is this life now." She looked to Suzy. "Help me zip up." She turned around and Suzy helped her put on the dress. It was time to go to the art auction and hopefully steal a cursed object without anybody noticing.

\---

After the hunt, the women retreated into the motel room, undid their dresses. The cursed object was safely in a curse box. The next morning, they headed to the storage unit.

Suzy noticed Linda becoming apprehensive as they approached the building. "Linda?"

"It's nothing. I was just imprisoned by the King of Hell in a storage unit once. For the better part of a year," she said quickly and so nonchalantly that Suzy could tell she didn't want to talk about it. Still, she didn't want her partner wigging out in the middle of a hunt.

"You okay?"

Linda smiled. "I know my son's alive and well. He's doing good work. I can handle a little storage unit."

"Your kid?" Suzy asked.

"His name is Kevin." Linda entered the storage unit with Suzy. They shelved the curse box and shut the door, the inside of which was painted with wards to keep demons and angels and monsters out.

\---

"I asked the Winchester boys about you. Suzy." Linda said.

Suzy licked her lips. She didn't realize that Linda  _ knew _ the Winchesters. She had always assumed that Linda was like her: Another person who was just sidelined by them rolling into town, killing the monster, and then rolling out. 

It changed her life. But for them, it was just another day on the job.

Most hunters hunted only occasionally. Not day in and day out. Jody took only cases in her general area. Most hunters did. Or if they travelled, it was to help out another hunter, then they were back to their old lives. Lines of salt in the windows and doors, wards and traps hidden in their decor, and a hunter's paranoia being the only thing differentiating them from their neighbors. 

"They remember you," Linda said. "You know, you have built a good reputation about yourself in hunter circles. New, but a fast learner. An amateur, but capable--dedicated. You have the stomach for the tough cases. But you've only been hunting for less than two years." Linda paused. "What are you trying to prove?"

She had gone so far down this rabbit hole that she wondered if all of this was really to press her lips against Dean's one more time. She had been doubting it for such a long time, she forgot when it started. She was no longer a porn star. And she wasn't a born-again virgin. Now, she was a hunter. "I… couldn't…"

"I understand," Linda said. "I got into this life because my son got sucked into it. I just wanted to make sure he was safe. Now I know how to kill monsters and exorcise demons. And then, I got…" She touched the burn on her arm, absentmindedly. "Sometimes you go through a lot. And you just can't be a civilian anymore. Simple as that."

Suzy smiled. She could try to explain. "Did Dean tell you who I was before everything?"

"Not much. He said you will tell me if you wanted."

"Well, you know _Casa Erotica?_ I was Carmelita..."

Linda leaned in, interested, as Suzy continued to tell her story--her own story this time.

\---

Linda looked up at the blonde. In the moonlight, you couldn't see her scars. Linda was now well-aware of her origin as Carmelita from  _ Casa Erotica _ . But she didn't look like the curvy and sensual porn star on the cover of a DVD. Nor did she look like the chastity counselor from A.P.U. in Good Faith. 

She was all edges and toughness. The scars on her face were not pretty, but it gave her a rough beauty that she wore with confidence now. She had grown a lot, mentally. Linda could see in the few months she had been hunting with her.

She was still damaged and Linda knew that nothing could heal that. The same way that nothing healed Dean or Sam. They were both so broken, but they continued on. Co-dependent in unhealthy amounts, but that was how they coped. And they were the best. Nobody went into this life without damage.

"You good?" Linda asked because it was their last night together before they would part ways.

"Yeah."

"Do you ever regret it? Any of it?"

Suzy shrugged.

They parted at sunrise. "Take care of yourself, Suzy," Linda said her farewell with a warm hug. 

"Yup," Suzy said as she hugged Linda back. 

She still owed Dean that kiss.


End file.
